New Zealand Criticizes Japanese Whaling

By Lucy Craymer

WELLINGTON—New Zealand criticized Japan’s seasonal resumption of whaling in the Southern Ocean as environmental activists released video footage of four dead minke whales on board a vessel they allege was operating in an internationally designated sanctuary for the creatures.

“The practice of whaling in the oceans south of New Zealand is pointless and offensive to a great many New Zealanders,” Foreign Minister Murray McCully said in a statement issued after the Sea Shepherd activist group published the footage on its website. “The government has repeatedly called on Japan to end its whaling program.”

The environmental campaigners said their own boats were now in pursuit of the Japanese whaling fleet—re-enacting a cat-and-mouse game that has played out repeatedly in recent years as the whaling season resumes.

According to Sea Shepherd, the Japanese boats were spotted operating inside the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. Japan denies any misconduct, saying its whaling is done primarily for scientific, not commercial, reasons and therefore is compliant with global conventions.

The Sea Shepherd footage showed three minke whales lying dead and a fourth, possibly of the same type, chopped up on another deck.

“It’s important those images get out to the world because it’s slaughter and killing out-and-out and shouldn’t continue to be labeled as science and research anymore,” Sid Chakravarty, captain of one of the Sea Shepherd boats, said by satellite phone.

The New Zealand government said it rejected Sea Shepherd’s claim that whaling was taking place in the nation’s sovereign waters.

Commercial whaling is banned in the 31-million-square-mile area around Antarctica. But member nations of the International Whaling Commission that imposed the ban—including Japan—are permitted to let their citizens hunt whales for scientific reasons.

Opponents of whaling claim the creatures are killed only ostensibly for research, pointing out that meat and other byproducts of the kill are sold commercially. Whale oil is used in some makeup products and the meat is regarded as a delicacy that can fetch up to ¥4,000 (US$38) for 100 grams in Japan.

Clashes between environmentalists and Japanese whalers have become an annual event, occasionally sparking diplomatic tensions with neighbors in the region. Australia said it was committed to overseeing Japan’s whaling activity but that the current incident hadn’t occurred in its monitoring zone.

In 2010, a New Zealand-registered activist boat collided with a whaling vessel, prompting Japan to lodge complaints with both the Australian and New Zealand governments over the aggressive actions of protesters from their countries.

Meanwhile, Australia, with New Zealand’s backing, is pressing the International Court of Justice to designate Japan’s “large-scale” whaling under its research program to be in breach of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling.

Japan last month said it had issued permits allowing its whalers to catch up to 935 Antarctic minkes, 50 fin whales and 50 humpbacks as part of research into sustainable hunting of the creatures. Last season, Japanese whalers killed in total 103 minke whales, which migrate to Antarctic waters to find food in the Southern Hemisphere’s summer months.

–Rob Taylor in Canberra and Alexander Martin in Tokyo contributed to this article.